What this site does not cover, and why

The rule we are following

Every ActSmall topic operates on a single editorial rule: where the named public-health authorities converge, we display it; where they diverge or are silent, we do not invent a position. Some readers want this site to take a side on 5G or smart meters or civilian nuclear power. We do not, because doing so would require us to invent a public-health claim that the named authorities have not made. The reverse is also true: where the authorities have published clear positions and we would not be inventing, we say so plainly. This primer covers the cases that come up most.

Non-ionising radiation (radiofrequency electromagnetic fields)

Mobile phones, 5G base stations, Wi-Fi routers, smart electricity meters, cordless phones, baby monitors, microwave ovens, and almost every wireless consumer device emit non-ionising radiation — radiofrequency electromagnetic fields (RF EMF). The defining property is that the energy of each photon is far too low to break chemical bonds. This is in sharp contrast to ionising radiation (X-rays, gamma rays, alpha particles from radon daughters), which has enough energy to displace electrons and damage DNA directly.

The named public-health authority on RF EMF is the International Commission on Non-Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP). ICNIRP publishes the exposure-limit guidelines that the WHO and most national regulators adopt directly or with minor adjustments. ICNIRP's 2020 RF guidelines update reaffirmed that exposure below the published limits does not cause established adverse health effects^[1]. The WHO's electromagnetic-fields FAQ takes the same position^[2].

The most-cited counter-position is the IARC's 2011 classification of radiofrequency electromagnetic fields as Group 2B — possibly carcinogenic to humans. This is real and we cite it. The IARC monograph (Volume 102) is explicit about what that classification means: it covers some evidence from epidemiological studies of heavy mobile phone use with the handset against the head, and it is the same category that contains pickled vegetables, coffee (until 2016), and aloe vera^[3]. Group 2B is not a finding of harm; it is a classification of evidence that does not meet the bar for Group 1 (established) or Group 2A (probable) and does not justify changes to consumer exposure guidelines.

We do not add a 5G or Wi-Fi or smart-meter layer to the map because doing so would imply a public-health story that the WHO, ICNIRP, and almost every national regulator have repeatedly said is not there at consumer exposures. The IARC 2B classification is published; we cite it; we do not extrapolate from it.

Airport security scanners

Modern airport security uses millimetre-wave body scanners (non-ionising, very low power) and X-ray backscatter scanners (ionising, very low dose — typically less than 0.1 microsieverts per scan, several thousand times less than a single chest X-ray). The European Commission and the US Health Physics Society both publish position statements covering scanner doses and frequent-traveller cumulative exposure; both classify them as not meaningful contributors to annual dose^[4]. We do not have a scanner layer on the map because there is no decision a normal passenger meaningfully needs to make about it.

Civilian nuclear power, and Chernobyl / Fukushima

Whether to expand or shrink civilian nuclear power is a real, contested policy question. In some countries it is one of the biggest political debates of the next decade. We do not take a position. The reason is that nuclear-policy positions are about energy strategy, climate-emissions accounting, security, waste-storage law, electricity-grid economics, and national-pride questions, not about household-radiation actions that work the same regardless of which side wins.

Specifically, what we do not do:

• We do not add a map layer showing reactor locations as if they were a household-radiation risk; population-level radiation dose from a normally-operating civilian reactor is in the rounding noise compared to the indoor-radon and medical-imaging slices of the dose budget (see the dose budget primer).
• We do not include the historical Chernobyl or Fukushima contamination footprints, because they are not actionable household-radiation context for almost any reader of this site today, and including them implies a household-action framing that they do not support. UNSCEAR and WHO have published the canonical follow-up health studies; we link to those where relevant.
• We do not pre-distribute potassium iodide guidance, dose-reconstruction calculators, or any other emergency-radiation tool, because acute incident response is the job of named national emergency authorities, not of a static informational map.

Consumer NORM (granite countertops, brick houses, alum-shale concrete)

Naturally Occurring Radioactive Materials (NORM) in domestic building products contribute small additional doses to indoor terrestrial gamma exposure. Granite countertops are the most-cited example. The IAEA and EPA both publish technical notes covering NORM in building materials. The bottom line in all the published analyses: NORM in domestic building products typically contributes less than 0.05 mSv per year per resident — roughly the dose from one trans-continental flight or 1.5 percent of the global-average annual dose^[5]. We do not have a NORM map layer because there is no individual decision proportionate to that dose contribution.

Where this leaves us

Everything we do cover — indoor radon, the dose budget, well-water contaminants, arsenic-affected aquifers — sits in the small category of radiation-and-soil topics where the named public-health bodies have converged on what the risk is, what the action is, and what an individual household can actually do. That is the whole pitch of the topic. Where the named authorities are silent or have explicitly said “no public-health story at consumer exposures,” we say the same thing.